


May I Kiss You?

by Azure (Fancy_Ravenclaw)



Series: May I Kiss You [1]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: AU, M/M, holiday au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 23:21:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11793576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fancy_Ravenclaw/pseuds/Azure
Summary: After finishing university Phil Lester goes on holiday to Greece to celebrate with some friends. There they meet a group of Italian tourists, one of whom catches Phil's eye. Phil has ten days to win Daniel Howell's attention.





	May I Kiss You?

**Author's Note:**

> If there's anything you'd like me to write, send me a prompt on my Tumblr Daniactuallysnuffledthatpopcorn or leave a comment! :) Hope you enjoy!!

Phil was walking along the beach in his bare feet. Chris and Louise were close behind him, Louise holding her slippers in one hand and trying to take the perfect selfie with the other. It was their second day in Greece. Their first full one, technically. The previous day they had arrived early in the evening and after dinner at the first restaurant they laid their eyes on, they went to the beach and found the perfect spot to set up camp. They were now on their way back to that spot, with the sun high in the sky and sunblock at the ready so they could spend the whole afternoon there.

As they got closer they realised that the spot they’d spent an hour scouting last night was taken. Phil started walking faster, as if he’d confront the people sitting there about the fact that that was their spot. “We should have plastered our names on there or something.” Chris said when he caught up with Phil.

“We can still sit next to them, it’s no big deal.” Louise said, always quick to avoid conflict. Phil wasn’t one to seek conflict himself either, he’d just sit and sulk for a few minutes before letting go and having fun. He knew that, because he was always like that in the face of conflict.

Louise even managed to cheerily greet the people on the towels in their spot. The boys reluctantly said “hello” back, and judging by their accents and confused expressions, Phil figured they were not confident in their ability to speak English and have a real conversation.

“Good spot that, eh?” Chris asked, not realising the same thing Phil had.

One of the boys nodded reluctantly, “Good sun.” He offered.

Chris seemed satisfied with that answer. He put down his towel and lay down with his limbs spread.

Phil gave the boys an apologetic look and put down his towel too, lying down just a tad more modestly.

After about half an hour of sunbathing, Louise got out the beach ball and convinced her two friends to play some very watered-down version of beach volleyball without a net with her. After Phil had just made a heroic dive and taken a mouthful of sand in in the process, Louise decided that there was too much beach for them to cover with just the three of them. As Phil attempted to get the sand out of his mouth as best he could, he watched Louise walk over to the foreign boys and ask them to come play. The boys exchanged glances and then got up. Phil quickly got to his feet, scared to seem weird to these boys, even though they’d most likely seen him dive anyway.

One of the boys walked straight up to him, and Phil wiped his mouth and gave his best smile. The boy offered him a bottle of water. Phil gave him a confused look, but the boy motioned to his mouth and nodded insistently. People were nice. This boy who could barely understand him and could not make himself understood had brought him water to rinse his mouth just from the good of his heart. “Thank you.” Phil said. Hoping the boy spoke at least a little English.

“I am Dan.” The boy said.

Phil spat out the gulp of water he had in his mouth and said his own name.

“Good.” Dan said in response, not able to form an actual reply.

When they’d played for a while, Phil had figured out that the other boys were called PJ, Ale, Antonio and Davide, who was Dan’s brother. They were from Italy. Those few bits of information were all they had been able to communicate to each other in over an hour of playing beach volleyball together.  
Phil thought of it as a game; trying to decipher what these people were saying to them. He was trying to get them to tell them how to say all the things they knew to say in English in Italian. If he was going to spend the afternoon with these Italian boys, he might as well learn something from it.

Dan, who was positioned next to him, kept saying Italian things and smiling when Phil tried to repeat them. He was even willing to repeat some English things, even though he was a bit hesitant.

When they sat down to have a break Phil asked him, “You’re not making me say rude things, are you?”  
Dan tilted his head to the side and lightly shook his head. Phil understood that this wasn’t a response to his question, but rather an indication that the other had no clue what he’d just said.

“Rude?” Phil tried again. “Fuck?”

Dan laughed at that. He clearly knew that word, but had no idea why Phil had suddenly said it.

“Cazzo.” He said.

Phil took a second to process it, but then he started laughing, “Wait, is that Italian for Fuck?”

Dan nodded. Phil laughed even more at that. A small miscommunication, but one that had taught him an Italian swearword, which was always useful.

When they started playing again, he made sure to use his new word every time he missed the ball by a mile or tripped over his own feet. The others didn’t seem to care much, but every time he did it Dan shot him a satisfied look.

Phil was disappointed when they had to leave by the end of the afternoon. They hugged the boys and Louise had somehow managed to establish that they’d be coming back the next afternoon, so they’d decided they would too. They weren’t sure if the others had actually understood that though. It wasn’t until they were walking along the water again, back to the boulevard, that Phil realised he’d gotten a massive sunburn on his shoulders. The Italians hadn’t stopped the volleyball to reapply sunblock, and it was only now that Phil realised the fact that his pale skin was not used to sun, especially not compared to a group of Italians. He bought some After-sun cream in a shop they passed on their way to a restaurant Chris had spotted the day before and wanted to try.

During dinner Phil practised his new Italian words on his friends and they laughed at him, confidently betting on how many days it would take for Phil to start a wild Summer romance with Dan. Although Phil laughed off their comments, he couldn’t deny that Dan was cute and he would not mind running his hands over the boy’s tanned torso.  
One of the plusses to hanging out with good-looking people on a beach was that they wore a very minimal amount of clothing and Phil had been able to cast a lot of sneaky glances in Dan’s direction.

\--

By the time they were walking up to their spot again the next day, Louise and Chris were completely done with Phil’s blabbering on about how worried he was that the Italian boys hadn’t understood them and weren’t going to be there. As soon as they got close enough to see even black shapes in the distance, Chris clapped him on the shoulder and said sternly, “See, there they are. All of them. Your boyfriend too.”

“How do you know? You can barely see them.” Phil didn’t even object to Chris calling Dan his boyfriend.

But when they got closer it turned out that it was indeed all five of the boys from yesterday sitting on the towels. When they walked up to them Ale held up a watermelon and asked, “Eat?”

Of course they sat with them and ate watermelon. Phil enjoyed it so much he didn’t realise he had watermelon juice running over his chin and must be looking ridiculous until he caught Dan’s eyes. Dan was smiling at him, “Anguria.” He said, pointing at the piece of watermelon Phil was holding. Phil wasn’t certain if the word he’d just said meant ‘watermelon’ or ‘drool’.

When Chris got up and threw the beach ball at Davide – who only just managed to catch it – everyone got up to go play beach volleyball. Everyone except for Dan. Phil kneeled down and motioned over to the others, but Dan shook his head and took a magazine out of a backpack that was lying near him, “Leggo.” He said, “Read?”  
“Yes.” Phil nodded. And then repeated the Italian word for ‘I read’. He got up to play volleyball with the others for a bit, but he kept glancing over at Dan, who was sitting quietly and reading his magazine. Phil was aware that he was playing possibly the worst game of beach volleyball he’d ever played, as he was just to distracted by Dan. When he missed another easy ball, Chris motioned over to him and said, “He’s in amore, guys. Can’t be saved.” The Italian boys seemed to understand and laughed. They rapidly said some Italian things to each other and Dan even looked up, shot them a grin and responded something. Phil felt his face go red.

He tried his best to focus on the game after that. Dan joined in when he finished his magazine, and when they eventually got bored, someone mentioned the word “gelato”, which everyone understood, and they climbed up onto the street at the back of the beach. The road had some weak fences lining it that one could easily jump over, and if you did you made drop of about 1,5 metres down onto the beach. It was just as easy to climb up, over the fence and onto the street. There was an ice cream shop across the road and that was where they went.

The Italian boys ordered their ice cream mostly by pointing and gesturing wildly. Antonio managed to say a few English words, but the others stuck to just sign language and a “thank you” at the end. They sat out on the terrace in front of the shop and Phil got out his phone to Google Translate a few questions he had for the boys.  
“Quanti anni avete?” He managed in what was probably a laughably bad accent.

They all said numbers, accompanying them with their fingers. Dan said twenty, which was easy to do with his fingers. “Venti.” He added, just because he knew Phil liked to repeat his Italian words. What he didn’t know was that Phil also just liked hearing him speaking Italian. It was a beautiful language and hearing it come out of this equally beautiful boy’s mouth was mesmerising.

He Google Translated “tell me something in Italian; anything” and Dan started talking in Italian. A bit hesitant at first, but when his friends started chiming in he got more comfortable. And Phil loved it. He had no clue what they were talking about – for all he knew they were just insulting him – but he couldn’t get enough.  
Now that he had Google Translate out anyway, it was easier to ask the Italians if they were going to be on the beach again the next day. Dan communicated with the help of the app that they were going on a snorkelling trip for the day, but they would be back by six. Louise immediately shouted a word she’d remembered from one of the travel guides she’d leafed through on the plane, “Ristorante!”

\--

And that was how Phil ended up spending the next day just waiting for the time to pass until they’d be going to the boulevard to meet the Italians for dinner.  
“Are you sad you’re not going to see Dan without his shirt on today?” Chris asked with a wink when they finally left the beach and started walking to the boulevard.

“Yes.” Phil said. There was no use in pretending, as he’d clearly been a bit dreamy all day. His mind was elsewhere, on a boat on the clear sea with a certain boy in snorkelling gear next to him.

They were the first to arrive at the restaurant. The waiter seated them and they ordered drinks while they waited for the others to arrive.

“So serious question.” Louise said. “What are you going to do if you actually get with this boy?”

Phil shrugged, “Cross that bridge when I get to it.”

\--

The Italians arrived with their hair barely dry and still salty from the seawater, and as soon as they’d ordered drinks they started showing them pictures on their phones. The landscape looked amazing, with the clear water Phil had imagined, with some islands here and there and beautiful colourful fish all around. There was a picture of Dan underwater, reaching out to a turtle as it swam past. It was good enough to fit in a magazine and Dan himself looked good enough to be a model who’d naturally be in those magazines. He was almost disappointed when the next photo was put on.

As Phil started daydreaming, his eyes still on the phone with the pictures, but his mind barely registering the images, he was suddenly tapped on the shoulder. He turned to Dan, who was sat next to him. The Italian boy pushed his phone over to him on the table. The Google Translate Application was opened, and below the Italian input text it said in English: “I would like to get to know you better”. He tried -and failed- not to blush, but when he looked up Dan’s cheeks were a pretty shade of red too. It looked good on his tan skin.

Carefully, Phil took the phone into his hands, reversed the input and output languages, and typed his response: “I’d like to get to know you better too, but I think it might be hard as we don’t speak each other’s language”. When Dan read this, he seemed confused for a few seconds before he grinned and nodded. Apparently the App had made something slightly nonsensical of his words, as Google Translate was known to do.

“Let’s go somewhere together tomorrow.”

Phil took a sharp breath and kept his eyes fixed on the phone, so Dan couldn’t see his face.

A date.

Was Dan asking him on a date?

Or was he just interested in being friends with him?

No, that’d be weird, wouldn’t it? If Dan wanted to just be friends he wouldn’t ask to hang out alone.

So he finally looked up and nodded. Dan’s eyes lit up. “Gelato?” He asked.

A waiter arrived to take their food orders, but Phil had completely forgotten to even look at the menu, so he said “the same for me”, despite not knowing what it was that the person before him had ordered. The Greek dish names were a mystery to him.

He quickly realised his mistake when Louise whispered, “I thought you didn’t like shellfish.”

\--

They sat at the restaurant for much longer than necessary, ordering three more rounds of drinks after dinner. Phil had already gone to pee twice, but maybe that was less from the cups of tea and more from the butterflies in his stomach. He was going to get gelato with Dan the next day. They’d meet at one, before the groups were due to meet each other at the beach, at the gelato shop they’d been to a few days prior. It had been a hassle sorting the agreement out over Google Translate during dinner, but a well-willing Antonio helped them out. From the group of Italians, he was the one with the most knowledge of English. And ‘the most’ in his case meant ‘very limited but would probably not die in England’.

Phil knew that Louise had been sending him knowing glances throughout their conversation, but he’d tried to ignore them the best he could. When they finally left the restaurant around midnight, there was no escaping it.

“You are so fucked.” Chris said as they walked on the boulevard back to their hotel.

Phil groaned, “I know, I know.”

After setting their appointment -date?- Phil had spent the rest of the evening chatting to Dan. He’d learnt some new Italian words from him and learnt that they were from Naples, which was a name Phil vaguely recognised. He’d started out just trying to learn new Italian words from the boy, but he’d now progressed to just wanting to hear him speak Italian, as it was possibly the most sexy thing he’d ever heard.

“I think it’s cute.” Louise offered. “Worrisome, but cute. You’d make an adorable couple.”

“I don’t even know if it’s a date.”

Chris and Louise both laughed heartily at that. “I do.” Chris said.

Phil couldn’t get to sleep that night.

\--

It was significantly warmer than it had been in the days before. Phil’s shirt was soaked in sweat moments after he had put it on, and his sticky legs felt like he’d wet himself. He didn’t own any tank tops as he didn’t feel like his arms were much to show off, so he had to drag himself to the gelato shop with sweat stains under his armpits. He would have to try to keep his arms down the whole time.

The ten-minute walk from the hotel was almost too much. He was sure the sweat stains would have spread down to his hips by now and felt ridiculous, but it was too late to turn back now; he could already see the flashy ice-cream-shaped sign of the shop in the distance. As he came closer, he spotted Dan’s head just sticking out above one of the windshields surrounding the terrace. And when Dan noticed him too and waved, all hope was lost: there was no turning back and feigning a sudden illness now.

He sneakily glanced at his shirt -which was disgusting- as he walked onto the terrace. The first thing he noticed about Dan was not the fact that his hair seemed to curl particularly beautifully today, or the fact that his smile had gotten broader and broader as Phil got closer, but the first thing he noticed was that Dan was not wearing a shirt. And this didn’t shake him because Dan was so gorgeous, although, also that, but because here Phil was, so worried about those stupid sweat stains, that he hadn’t even considered just not putting on a shirt at all.

He sank down on the bench next to Dan, and immediately pulled his shirt over his head. Get rid of that insecurity right away: he had plenty more to bring to the table.

“Hot.” Dan said. For a moment, Phil figured Dan probably didn’t know the word could also apply to people, but then he noticed Dan’s grin and his face flushed red. “You too.” He quickly replied.

“Caldo.” Dan then said, and Phil was grateful for the change of topic. He repeated the Italian word a few times, until Dan nodded in satisfaction.

“Sun.” Phil said, pointing to the sky. “It’s too hot.”

“Il sole è troppo caldo.” Dan responded.

“Si.” Phil nodded, not daring to attempt the entire sentence. He only did so when Dan said it slower, so he could properly hear the distinction between the different words.

They sat and threw some Italian words back and forth for a while, until Dan finally pointed to the shop behind them and asked, “Gelato?” and thereby reminded Phil why he’d actually come here in the first place.

As soon as they got their ice cream they got back to their Italian and Phil once again immersed himself in the conversation, again forgetting about the ice cream. And again it took Dan pointing it out to him for him to remember. “You’re just more interesting than ice cream.” Phil said, not really expecting Dan to understand him. But he did, and he laughed.

“Più interessante.” He said, and then, “More interesting.” And Phil realised that as much as he loved hearing Dan speak in Italian, he loved hearing him speak English even more. His accent was adorable.

\--

They met again the next day at one. This time they only met at the gelato shop, but didn’t actually go inside. They wandered around the narrow streets behind it, with pastel coloured houses and tan people sitting outside on the streets, enjoying the sun.

Every now and again Dan would point at something and say the Italian word, which Phil would repeat. Then Phil would say the English word and Dan would repeat it, shaking Phil’s arm excitedly when it was a word he already knew.

“You have brothers?” Dan asked as they walked into a small park.

“I have one brother. His name is Martyn.” Phil responded. “Is Davide your only brother?”

“Davide is my brother.” Dan said carefully.

“You have one brother? Uno?”

“Yes. Davide.”

In this wobbly manner Phil also figured out that Dan lived with his parents and went to university in Naples. He had a cat called Salvatore, who was always outside -outside was ‘fuori’. Figuring that out cost a bit of frustration from both sides-, and a rabbit named Bobby. Phil told Dan he lived alone and made YouTube videos for a living, although he wasn’t sure Dan understood that entirely. He also said he’d just finished university and was on holiday with his friends to celebrate that fact, and he used to have a dog.

It was basic conversation, but it was hard enough and took them nearly two hours to sort out. Dan could understand some basics, but speaking was very hard for him. Phil, of course, didn’t speak any Italian and was completely reliant on Dan’s limited language skills.

“Back to the spiaggia?” Phil asked when it got so hot in the small streets where they were walking that after already having taken off his shirt he was now considering taking off his pants too.

Dan nodded and together they made their way to the beach. Their friends should already be there by now, and Phil couldn’t wait to dive face first into the cool ocean.

Just as they were about to step out of the alleyway next to the gelato shop, back onto the street that ran by the beach, Dan grabbed Phil’s arm and pulled him back.

“You okay?” Phil asked, confused.

“I like you.” Dan blurted out.

Phil opened his mouth and closed it again. So these had definitely been dates then. “I like you too.”

“May I kiss you?”

“Yes, definitely.”

In the shade that the gelato shop offered them, shielded from eyes coming from the street, Dan stood on his toes and kissed Phil, more confidently than either of them had expected. Phil put his hands on Dan’s bare back and returned the kiss. Dan was soft and warm, and probably much less sweaty than Phil himself, but Dan didn’t seem to mind. His hands were on Phil’s hips, nails digging into his skin a little.

“That was good.” Phil said breathlessly when they pulled apart. He wasn’t sure why he said that and was afraid he’d made things awkward, but Dan just nodded and offered his hand.

As they walked to the beach together, hand in hand, Phil knew his Summer crush had just gotten a lot more complicated.

\--

It was their last day in Greece. The Italians would be staying another day, but Phil, Chris and Louise had to go back to England. They’d ended up spending most of their time at the beach together, apart from the Italians’ day trip on the boat and the day the English went to visit some museums and churches in nearby villages.

After that first kiss, many more had followed. Phil had taken every opportunity he could get to kiss that beautiful Italian boy, as he knew it would be long before he would get to do that again. Maybe it would never even happen again. Their flight was at five in the afternoon, so they would be leaving for the airport at two.

Dan and Phil were sitting outside the gelato shop, both holding ice cream with one hand and holding each other’s hand with the other. They’d exchanged phone numbers and Phil knew that although it would be easier to communicate with the help of Google Translate through text, he would still miss speaking in person, even though it was a struggle.

There was one more thing to do before he left, but Phil had been putting it off for a while now. He didn’t have much longer though: Chris and Louise would be coming by with the rental car to pick him up in five minutes. He felt like his heart was trying to climb its way up to his throat; a combination of his rapid heartbeat and feeling like he was going to throw up.  
When he finished his ice cream, he ran out of reasons to put it off any longer.

“Hey Dan?” That was a start. He’d initiated the conversation and now he had no choice but to finish it.

“Yes?”

A silence.

“Will you be my boyfriend? Like officially?”

“Yes. Official.” Dan said, and broke into a smile that assured Phil he knew what he had just said.

A last kiss as they saw the ugly red Renault turn the corner and Phil grit his teeth to keep his tears back. “I will text you.” He promised when they pulled apart. He got to his feet and quickly wiped his eyes. Dan put his head on Phil’s shoulder and kept it there until the car pulled up in front of them.

Chris and Louise had been teasing Phil for the past ten days, but now they were both serious and recognised that this was not the right moment for jokes. Phil kissed the top of Dan’s head and opened the car door and got in the car. He didn’t let go of Dan’s hand until he really had to close the door, and even then he immediately rolled down the window so he could squeeze his boyfriend’s hand one last time.

He watched Dan’s silhouette get smaller and smaller and smaller through the back window until he could no longer see him.

\--

Before they boarded the plane, Phil went into a tourist shop and bought an Italian dictionary. An image of Dan stuck in his mind told him they could make it work and Phil was willing to give it his all.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my take on how my parents met. My Dutch mother went on holiday with friends to Greece, and my father got a last-minute invite to go on a free holiday because a friend fell ill, so he went to Greece too. They met there on the beach, where my father's brother had a crush on my mum first, but she chose my dad. His English was very bad, but my mum recalls him asking "May I kiss you" before they kissed for the first time. Later it turned out that my dad had lied about his age and my mum said she would've never dated him if she'd known he was much younger than she thought, but by the time he told her she had already fallen in love with him and it was too late. Their story of coincidences makes me feel like sometimes love is meant to be. I think Dan and Phil are meant to be together too, and the stars aligned to make their love possible.


End file.
